Credit: Source: Zacks.comStock screeners are an essential tool for all investors looking for new ideas. While many websites offer stock screeners, most are only available to brokerage clients or subscribers. Amongst free stock screeners, the quality varies greatly. The best free stock screeners provide versatility, depth, and functionality to make the enterprising investor's life a little easier. Read on for the best free stock screeners.
#1 Zacks Stock Screener
Zacks' stock screener is the best freestock screeneron the web for U.S. stocks. The screener has the most breadth, with well over 100 fundamental metrics as well as analyst rating data, earnings estimate data, and earnings surprise data. The screener is also the most versatile as you can enter in whatever values you want instead of selecting from a drop down menu.
Zacksstock screeneris also, in my opinion, the easiest to use and crucially allows you to export the results of your stock screen into a spreadsheet.
The two downsides of Zacksstock screeneris that it only includes U.S. stocks, and you cannot screen using any technical metrics. For U.S. investors, neither of those detract much from what is a great freestock screener
#2 Finviz Stock Screener
Finviz's stock screener comes in as the second beststock screeneron the web as you can screen U.S. stocks using over 60 fundamental and technical metrics. Fundamental investors may find the stock screen lacking in comparison to Zacks' but if your process uses both fundamental and technical analysis then Finviz is a good resource.
While the site only allows you to use dropdowns for metric values, each has enough categories to allow you to make fairly specific filters. You can also export the results of your screen into a spreadsheet for more analysis. None of the other free stock screeners have the ability to combine technical and fundamental metrics which is what puts Finviz second.
#3 Google Finance Stock Screener
Google Finance's stock screener is the third best freestock screeneron the web. In terms of breadth, Google Finance is top in that it allows you to screen across 37 different countries based on 56 fundamental metrics. For U.S. centric investors, Zacks'stock screeneris still a better choice.
In terms of ease of use, the Google Finance screener updates in real-time and has the interesting capability of sliders that show you the distribution of companies across a particular metric. Google Finance's big weakness is that you cannot export data into a spreadsheet. If your screen ends up with more than 30 results you are stuck with needing to copy and paste multiple pages into a spreadsheet. Only one other free screener enables you to screen countries besides the U.S. so this is still a useful tool for your investing toolkit.
#4 Motley Fool Stock Screener
Motley Fool's stock screener only has 30 fundamental metrics, but it has an additional set of metrics that all the others lack, Motley Fool's CAPS ratings for stocks. If you are unfamiliar, CAPS is the Fool's free investing community which aggregates the intelligence of investors to rate stocks from one to five. Players on Motley Fool CAPS make predictions on whether stocks will outperform or underperform the market. Motley Fool compiles that data into star rankings which have been shown to outperform the market.
The Motley Fool'sstock screeneralso allows you to export results to a spreadsheet for extra analysis. The downside of the Fool's screener however is that you can only screen with a limited set of metrics. Regardless, the data from CAPS makes this a great tool for your investing toolkit.
#5 Uncle Stock Stock Screener
The Uncle Stock stock screener is the fifth beststock screeneron the web. It is by far the most versatile of the free stock screeners, with well over 200 different metrics you can screen by. It also has a large amount of depth in that you can screen across 13 different countries.
Where the Uncle Stockstock screenercomes up short is in ease of use. To run your own screen you have to press the "search stocks" button in the middle of the menu bar, which is not obvious. Second and more importantly, the screener only gives you results in sets of 8, you have to select "more stocks" to see more stocks that fit your parameters. Thankfully, you can export your results to a spreadsheet, but you only see the stocks your search has been expanded to include. While by far the most powerful of the screeners, the Unclestock screeners usability limitations put it fifth in my book.
Honorable Mention
For preset screens, one promising new free stock screener is the Old School Value stock screener . The screener offers 15 different predefined screens each of which have been researched and back tested for performance. You can even see how each screen performed every year for the past 15 years.
Many other sites offer free stock screeners. Screening is just one way of coming up with ideas. The most important thing is what you do with them.
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The article The Best Free Stock Screeners originally appeared on Fool.com.
Dan Dzombakcan be found on Twitter @DanDzombak, on his Facebook page DanDzombak, or on hisblogwhere he writes about investing, happiness, thesecret to success in life, andhow to be successful in life.Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days . We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
